Minisode: When is a vegetable really a fruit?

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Emily Davenport: 0:01

Welcome to Cultivating Curiosity, where we get down and dirty with the experts on all the ways science and agriculture touch our lives, from what we eat to how we live. I'm Emily Davenport.

Jordan Powers: 0:12

And I'm Jordan Powers. And we're from the University of Georgia's College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

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Jordan Powers: 0:21

Today, we're talking to Tim Coolong, professor of horticulture and UGA Extension vegetable specialist. Welcome, Tim.

Tim Coolong: 0:27

Nice to be here. Thank you for having me.

Jordan Powers: 0:28

So from an early age, we are told to eat our vegetables. But while we can point to the fruit or reproductive part of a plant, you can't point to the vegetable part of a plant. When we're talking about veggies, what are we really talking about?

Tim Coolong: 0:41

So there are several different definitions of what a vegetable is. One of the kind of older and perhaps more common definitions would be an item of food that would be complementary to kind of the main dish that you're eating. So think of slicing up zucchini in a casserole or something like that. Whereas a fruit oftentimes would be considered in that definition an item of food that

Jordan Powers: 1:17

That's true.

Emily Davenport: 1:19

Delicious.

Jordan Powers: 1:19

Hmm, now I want pie.

Everyone: 1:20

[laughter]

Emily Davenport: 1:22

So there's a lot of cases when a vegetable's really the fruit of the plant, is that correct?

Tim Coolong: 1:28

That is absolutely correct. Yes. Botanically speaking, in many cases, the vegetable that we commonly think of is actually a fruit, yes.

Emily Davenport: 1:36

Can you give us some good examples?

Tim Coolong: 1:38

Everyone in their vegetable garden usually has tomatoes and most individuals realize the tomato is the actual fruit of the plant. Cucumbers would be a fruit, squash, zucchini, are the fruit you know, if you get into some of the melons and those sorts of things, those would also be botanically fruit.

Emily Davenport: 1:53

And what makes them the fruit?

Tim Coolong: 1:55

So usually the fruit would be the accessory reproduction structures for an organism. So in some cases, it's the swollen ovary or other accessory structures. If you eat a vegetable that has seeds in it, generally, botanically speaking, that item is going to be a fruit.

Jordan Powers: 2:12

So is that specifically what defines a fruit, is having the seeds in it? Or what else goes into defining a fruit?

Tim Coolong: 2:17

Not necessarily. So the fruit usually is associated with the reproductive organ, but for example, we have parthenocarpic cucumbers, which are self fertile cucumbers that do not set seed so seedless cucumbers if you ever get them in the store. So there are some kind of nuances to that definition.

Emily Davenport: 2:35

Okay. You said a fun word, parthenocarpic. What does that mean?

Tim Coolong: 2:39

So in the most general sense, it is a fruiting structure that can grow, create a fruit without pollination, so seedless cucumbers, there are some parthenocarpic squash that are available. And you know, typically a cucurbit or cucumber would have to be cross pollinated from your male flower to your female flower, but the parthenocarpic cucumber does not. And that's why they are commonly

Emily Davenport: 3:09

Okay, I have a wild question. Sometimes I cut open a bell pepper and there's a little baby bell pepper inside my pepper.

Tim Coolong: 3:16

Yeah, it wouldn't necessarily be a baby per se. It's just kind of a malformed fruit. Sometimes the flower could have been present. There may be two female flower parts kind of adjacent to each other in some cases. We see that sometimes with squash fruit as well, you'll have two that are connected together. So they're just kind of a little genetic anomaly.

Emily Davenport: 3:41

Okay.

Jordan Powers: 3:42

It's not a baby. It's a genetic anomaly.

Everyone: 3:44

[laughter]

Emily Davenport: 3:45

I want to call it a baby.

Tim Coolong: 3:45

Or you can call it a baby, too.

Jordan Powers: 3:47

Whatever makes you happy, Emily. So we're learning that a lot of vegetables are actually a fruit, but part of your role is to be the UGA Extension vegetable specialist. So tell us a little bit about your role and what the day to day there looks like?

Tim Coolong: 4:01

Sure. So what a lot of individuals may not realize is that every state has a land grant university. And there are three roles to that land grant, there's teaching, there's research, and then there's extension. And so the extension side of things is very diverse. It could be from 4-H, all the way to what I do, which would be doing outreach and applied research for farmers. And so

Jordan Powers: 4:50

Wow. So you're helping us get those vegetables on the table.

Tim Coolong: 4:54

Hopefully. We're helping farmers. There's always issues that are present, especially when you're working with a biological system affected by weather and climate variables. And so there's a lot of work for us to do.

Emily Davenport: 5:09

So what kind of produce are you working with as a vegetable specialist?

Tim Coolong: 5:13

In general, we will work with crops that are commercially produced in the state. In Georgia, we grow about 30 vegetable commodities on a commercial scale. It ranges realistically, everything from asparagus to zucchini, we cover everything in between. You know, one day, I may have a call about lettuce production, the next day, it could be cabbage, two weeks later, it could be

Emily Davenport: 5:42

Okay, wait, you said watermelon isn't a watermelon a fruit?

Tim Coolong: 5:46

Good question. So, yes, technically, it is a fruit, botanically, and a number of years ago, in terms of the vegetable specialist or someone working with them, in some cases, the fruit specialists may have worked with watermelon, cantaloupe and so on. And if you look back at the definition I gave earlier about a vegetable being consumed as part of a dish, you know, watermelon,

Jordan Powers: 6:45

Could be worse than having watermelon as part of your responsibility.

Tim Coolong: 6:48

It certainly could be, yeah.

Jordan Powers: 6:50

I'm sure they're finicky when you're growing, they are delicious to eat.

Emily Davenport: 6:53

They are.

Jordan Powers: 6:54

So you talked a little bit about the importance of applied research in your role and in your day to day. Can you give us a definition or share a little bit more about what applied research is for our listeners?

Tim Coolong: 7:04

Within kind of the university setting, research runs the gamut. But within plant sciences, for example, you would have on one end myself, I do a lot of applied research, which is field based research, generally, sometimes mixed with greenhouse work, with the main goal of coming up with a direct recommendation that could impact a farmer production system, what have you. On the other

Emily Davenport: 8:15

Tell us some surprising misconceptions consumers might have about produce. Like we heard a little rumor about strawberries.

Tim Coolong: 8:23

So strawberries are generally considered fruit, although, of course the fruit part of the strawberry is the little tiny brown hard things that get stuck in your teeth typically, and the berry kind of part that most people associate is kind of the accessory organ with it. And strawberries are grown very much like vegetables, actually. They are grown as annual plants. In Georgia, they

Emily Davenport: 8:56

I can't wait my favorite time of year is strawberry jam.

Jordan Powers: 8:59

Love it.

Everyone: 9:00

[laughter]

Jordan Powers: 9:01

Is there anything else that we've missed when it comes to the fruits versus veggies conversation?

Tim Coolong: 9:07

There's a lot of subtleties, you know, broccoli, for example, that's a flower that hasn't matured yet. That's why sometimes you'll see some yellowing in the beads. Cauliflower, very similar. So there's a lot of other things that go into vegetables like a onion is a swollen base of the leaf tissue. And so vegetables cover a very broad range of kind of botanical plant parts.

Jordan Powers: 9:33

Oh, that's fascinating. Okay, so now what about garlic? We could be here all day, just like "what about this? What about this?"

Emily Davenport: 9:38

Yes.

Jordan Powers: 9:38

But you said onions, so now I'm curious about garlic because a lot of times people consider them very similar, but they seem to grow very differently.

Tim Coolong: 9:45

One of the big differences between onions and garlic is that garlic is usually vegetatively propagated. So when you grow it in the field, you plant individual cloves to grow, whereas onions are almost always grown from seed. Occasionally from sets but for the most part, they are grown from seedlings and so forth. So there's a big distinction there, but they serve kind of the same

Jordan Powers: 10:23

Love it. Now I'm hungry.

Emily Davenport: 10:24

Yeah, I know, me too. I also heard that broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage are all the same plant.

Tim Coolong: 10:33

They're not the same plant. They are in the same genus, so they're in the Brassica family. So brussel sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, collard greens, all within the same Brassica genus. And different subtypes or different varieties, of course. And Georgia actually grows a lot of brassicas. We are one of the leading cabbage states in the United States as well as greens like collards

Jordan Powers: 10:59

Now I want to get some onions and collards.

Emily Davenport: 11:01

I know.

Jordan Powers: 11:02

Get going on a good dinner here.

Emily Davenport: 11:04

Is it too late for lunch?

Jordan Powers: 11:05

Never. Never too late for collard greens.

Emily Davenport: 11:07

Right?

Jordan Powers: 11:08

Do you have a favorite vegetable as a consumer?

Tim Coolong: 11:11

So as a consumer versus someone doing research, I do like working with pumpkins quite a bit. In general, we grow pumpkins as a decoration, so we're not eating them, although there are pie pumpkins. But it's usually kind of a fun vegetable to grow, you get these huge fruit in the field. It's a nice time of year when you're harvesting. Probably watermelons, though, outside of pumpkins

Jordan Powers: 11:54

I can imagine.

Emily Davenport: 11:54

Amazing.

Jordan Powers: 11:55

That sounds incredible. Tim, thank you for joining us today. We really appreciate your time.

Tim Coolong: 12:00

Absolutely. Thank you for having me and happy to help clear up, or maybe confuse some things even more.

Jordan Powers: 12:06

All I'm hearing is my kids still need to eat their vegetables.

Emily Davenport: 12:09

You could just call them fruits and then it's fine.

Jordan Powers: 12:11

Exactly. Thanks, Tim.

Tim Coolong: 12:14

Thank you.

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Emily Davenport: 12:15

Thanks for listening to Cultivating Curiosity, a podcast produced by the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. A special thanks to Mason McClintock for our music and sound effects. Find more episodes wherever you get your podcasts.